If You Want to Build Yourself a Tiny, Portable House, This is Your Weekend to Learn

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company will show you how to design plans for a tiny functional house, then build the thing, plop it on a trailer hitch, and exist by roaming the land as the unfettered Kerouac gypsy soul your high school self was certain you'd turn out to be.

Or you could just live the very, very simple life rooted to one tiny spot. People are really doing this, and a two-day workshop will be held Saturday and Sunday in Dallas to educate the curious on the tiny house movement.

Workshop instructor Ella on the tiny house porch she built.

An adorable tiny house expert named Ella (her blog is here) will teach exceptionally useful skills for tiny house creation, such as materials selection, insulation and venting techniques, cost efficient construction, roofing, and guarding against condensation.

What does "condensation" mean for tiny house Texans? Does it act as a blanket term for torrential rains, strong winds, and, say, the occasional funnel cloud? We'll find out. We will learn that building your own tiny house is utterly equivalent to redesigning your life. Eliminate your excess and forsake technology! It's a little bit Oprah and a little bit Judd and a little bit Emily Litella reading "Tiny Kingdom."

They seem adaptable, these tiny houses, like off-grid gingerbread houses for real people. They are the DIY public shaming of people booking El Cosmico teepees. I'll build my own tiny house cause I'm a motherfucking monster (I've been listening to Kanye, sorry). Think of the tiny house as enabling a permanent wanderlust or a permanent simplicity.

The cost of the two-day workshop is $399, and will be held June 22-23 (this Saturday and Sunday) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, at the Holiday Inn Dallas Central. If you'd rather purchase ready-made plans from Tumbleweed, all of which are very cool, the cost of the workshop drops to $89.